


Come Back Home

by PalmettoFoxDen



Category: Green Creek Series - T.J. Klune
Genre: A fill in the gaps between Richard and Ox fic, And has trouble getting them back and fitting into the pack again, And the pack struggles with that too, Gen, It's sad but the ending isn't, Joe lost the pack bonds with Richard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 16:37:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15889902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PalmettoFoxDen/pseuds/PalmettoFoxDen
Summary: Even though Joe is back physically, the pack bonds are gone and he is not the boy he once was. Joe struggles to find his place in the pack again and the pack struggles to equate this Joe with the one they lost.





	Come Back Home

Feeling Joe’s pain and misery along the pack bonds is torture. He is in pain and crying out for help and they can do nothing to protect him. Elizabeth’s son is out there and she is powerless to fight off the monsters for him.

Far worse than feeling his pain is the day the pack bonds disappear. The blue in the background that had become so familiar is ripped away all at once and they all feel it. The pain is still there, like a phantom limb. But-

“He’s gone,” Thomas said, although they could all already feel it.

The grief in those two words is enough to knock the air out of Elizabeth’s lungs.

Thomas had always had a soft spot for Richard. He had been Thomas’s first second, his second brother. Elizabeth had never trusted him.

Thomas always believed they would get Joe back. It is how he has kept himself sane in Joe’s absence. Elizabeth can tell her husband is just now realizing that Richard is too far gone to care about anything but hurting those he deems responsible for his family’s deaths. Elizabeth thinks she understands that now.

She will not let this break her down. She will not roll over and die.

“My son is not dead,” she says, all steely and determined. It is a warning as much as it is an assurance. “I would know.”

She isn’t as certain as she makes herself out to be, but she is certain of one thing. If Joe is dead, she will live to tear out Richard’s throat and the throat of anyone who dared to help him.

If Elizabeth Bennett’s son is dead, the world will pay. She will burn it down herself.

* * *

The pack bonds break and Joe can’t feel his family anymore.

Richard tells him that they cut the bonds and cut him out. He tells him that they’re glad to be rid of him. He tells him that they don’t want him in their pack. He tells Joe that they will not take him back, even if he goes back to them. He tells Joe that they do not love him and he is not good enough to be the future alpha, so they threw him out and they are relieved to have him gone.

Joe can’t feel his family, no matter how hard he reaches out. He doesn’t want them to feel his pain, but he wants to know if they still care about him at all.

The bonds are broken though and the longer he goes on without them, the more Joe believes what Richard tells him over and over and over.

* * *

Thomas keeps the promise he made the moment their son went missing. He finds his son and he brings him back to them.

The boy he brings home is Joe, but he’s not. He has a vacant look in his eyes and he doesn’t speak. He is an echo left behind after Joe has disappeared.

They can’t feel him anymore and that is a punch to the gut.

This is Joe, but it isn’t the Joe that they know. This new Joe is a closed book in so many ways and they don’t know the language well enough to read the book jacket.

Thomas is furious all the time. He thought the anger would go away when they got Joe back, but it has only grown deeper.

One time, when he is alone in his office, he trashes it. He knocks everything off his desk, throws books at the wall, smashes his computer on the floor, nothing is safe.

He is making a lot of noise and growling to himself, but he doesn’t care because he needs an outlet for all of this rage that has built up inside of him.

He doesn’t remember that the door is open until he calms down enough to look around at the debris, still out of breath from his fit, and he sees Joe standing in the doorway with wide eyes.

After that, Thomas holds his anger in. He refuses to be the kind of man his own son fears.

* * *

Elizabeth can see the grief overwhelming Thomas, even with their son back safe with them.

She tries to calm him down and assures him, “Joe is still our son. He is back and safe and that is enough. We will figure this out together.”

Thomas nods his head and presses his forehead against hers. She can tell he wants to believe her words. She wants to believe them too.

Part of her still feels that her son is gone and the boy they brought home is just his afterimage, nothing more than a mirage.

But Elizabeth has to be strong for her family and her pack and for Joe. She tries to convince herself that Joe needs time to adjust and they will figure this out and get him back fully as much as she tries to convince her sons and husband and Mark. She thinks that maybe, just maybe, if she says the words enough, they might come true.

* * *

Joe sees the way that his family can all sense each other. He says the way they act on words unspoken and react to mood changes he can’t feel. He sees comforting hands on shoulders when he can’t feel their blue. He sees synchronized movements that are a little too precise to be as spontaneous as they look.

They all fit together like pieces of a puzzle. He remembers what that feels like. Those bonds should be back now that they are together again, but they are not. Richard broke him and he doesn’t know how to be pack anymore. He does not think that he will ever remember.

He may be there with him, but they are a pack and he is still on his own.

Sure, they are there for him. They hover around him all the time, like they are afraid he will disappear or shatter if left alone. But there is a wall between them and it feels like it grows thicker each and every day. Joe is settling into this new role he plays in this family, not growing out of it.

His brothers bring him with them when they play. They are there by his side, but they have still have bonds. They have a connection Joe doesn’t share with them and Joe sees that.

That hurts and it makes Joe wonder if Richard was right or, worse, maybe Richard was wrong and his family had wanted him back, but they are sorry that they have him back now that they see what he has become.

* * *

Carter and Kelly had missed their brother when he was gone.

Now that he is back, they watch over him and are protective of him. They spend time with him and are afraid to let him out of their sight, just like their parents and like Uncle Mark.

When Joe wakes up screaming and it’s the first sound they’ve heard out of him since he got back, they are the first by his side. They don’t know how to comfort him with their words, so they try to comfort him with physical affection.

They lie with him when he can’t get back to sleep after his nightmares, curling up around him and resting their chins on him. They ruffle his hair when they pass by him. They sit with him so close that they’re all pressed together. But something feels  _ off _ .

They weren’t split up. While Joe was gone, they leaned on each other and that brought them even closer. They still have pack bonds. They have a connection with each other that they don’t have with Joe anymore.

They know he’s in pain, but they can’t feel it. They can’t feel if they’re helping him. They can’t feel him at all.

They love Joe, but they don’t know him anymore and the harder they try to find the brother they remember, the more hopeless their efforts seem.

* * *

Full moons make things worse.

Joe is still too young to turn, but he is the only one.

He used to sing and run with them, even if he was a boy among wolves. Now, he sits on the sidelines in silence.

They reach out to him with  _ familybrothersonnephew  _ but their words don’t reach him. He just stares back at them vacantly as they whimper.

They don’t leave him alone. They play in shifts, but someone always stays by Joe’s side. They cover him in their scent, hoping that they can bring him back to their pack, but still they can’t feel him.

Elizabeth never leaves her son’s side. The other wolves come over to visit her and Joe every once in a while when they’re playing, but she does not run with them. She won’t run again until her son comes all the way back to her. She sings along with her pack from by her son’s side though.

While Joe sits silent, they howl out a  _ blue blue  _ song.

It’s a horrible thing, trying to sing a loved one back home, knowing he is sitting right there with you and couldn’t be further away.

* * *

Joe never feels more alone than on full moons. The others all shift and run together, except for Elizabeth who won’t leave his side.

He knows she wants to run and play with them. He wants to tell her to, but he can’t find the words. When he tries, they get stuck in his throat.

The wolves still put their scents on him, like they always used to, but this is not the same as it used to be. They hesitate for a moment before they go, but they still run and play together without him.

He feels bad when they come to check in on him and sit with him instead of running and playing together. He knows that the moon is pulling them to howl and play and have fun. He remembers when he was little and words weren’t so hard, he used to ask his father all about what it is like to be a wolf and how it feels on a full moon. He remembers Mark and Thomas telling him how it feels  _ free free free _ . He remembers Carter changing for the first time and feeling so jealous and he remembers he and Kelly peppering him with questions the moment he turned back. He remembers Kelly’s first shift when Carter and Kelly got so caught up in playing together that they ran until they collapsed and fell asleep in a heap.

Joe used to run with them. He used to feel free, even though he wasn’t a wolf yet. Now, he thinks that even when he is a wolf, he won’t belong.

It hurts to watch them play without him. It hurts to watch them sit the fun out to watch over him. He feels broken and left out and like a burden on everyone he loves.

He watches as his mother lies at his side, her paws twitching with the desire to run, and he wonders if Richard was right that his family was better off without him. He wonders if a part of them wishes he had never come back.

* * *

It’s been almost a year, when Thomas says, “I don’t know what to do anymore. My son is broken and I can’t fix him. The bonds should be back by now.”

Mark says, “You can’t force the pack bonds on anyone. There is a lot you can control as alpha, but that is one thing you can’t.”

Thomas says, “You know I didn’t want to leave him. You know if I had my way, he would still be pack.”

Mark says, “If he had his way, he would still be pack. He would still be pack if you hadn’t abandoned him. Gordo doesn’t have a pack because of you. You just  _ had _ to be the alpha everyone wanted you to be, even if it meant leaving him all alone after everything we lost. After everything  _ he  _ lost. And what good has that done us? Richard took Joe to get back at you. You are the reason Joe isn’t pack anymore.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Mark regrets them. He is worried about his nephew too. He wants to see Joe healed. He wants them to be a real pack again, but part of him is still mad at Thomas for not fighting for Gordo. Part of him never forgot how close he came to breaking the pack bonds himself.

Mark doesn’t believe that it is Thomas’s fault that Joe isn’t pack. He had just wanted to hurt him for sins that came long before Richard took Joe. But Thomas looks as hurt as if Mark had just stabbed him with a silver knife.

Mark might not believe this is Thomas’s fault, but Thomas clearly does.

“Thomas, I didn’t mean it,” he says as his anger dies down and is overcome by blue. “You’re not-”

“No,” Thomas says. “You’re right. I should be doing more for him instead of just waiting and hoping he comes back to us.”

“More?” Mark asks. Part of him is relieved for the change of subject. Talking about Gordo still hurts. Thinking about the way they left and how he went along with it still gets Mark riled up.

“Maybe, I’ve been afraid of the pack bonds coming back,” Thomas admits. “I want him back part of this pack more than anything, but I’m afraid to truly feel his pain. The glimpses we get are already too much.”

Mark knows what he means. Joe’s screams in the night and the erratic beats of his heart are overwhelming enough. Maybe, Mark hasn’t been pushing for the pack bonds hard enough either for the same reason.

“I haven’t been doing everything I can, but that’s going to change,” Thomas says. “We’re going home.”

“Home?” Mark asks.

His chest feels tight, but he doesn’t let himself truly believe that Thomas means what it sounds like he means.

“I do not care what anyone says or thinks of me anymore,” Thomas says. “You’re right. I cared what others said for too long and look where it got us. I should have listened to you earlier. I’m sorry.”

Mark could hardly believe his ears.

“We’re going home to Green Creek,” Thomas tells him. “If Joe can’t find his way home on his own, maybe bringing him to our land will help lead him back to us.”

_ Home. _

Mark could hardly believe it. They’re really going home.

* * *

When they move back to Green Creek, it is a homecoming for the pack but not for Joe.

As he watches them unpack, Joe looks around this home that they have all lived in before and he hasn’t. This is their home, not his. They are settling back in and he is still just an outlier.

Joe doesn’t think he is worthy of becoming pack again. He is a broken piece of a puzzle they have figured out how to complete without him. He is on his own and maybe he is resisting the reforming of the pack bonds.

He watches the pack that isn’t his and sees the relief they feel to be back, even though he can’t feel it.

It is written in the tension easing in shoulders that have been permanently stiff since he came back to them. It is in the way they are looking around in disbelief like they cannot believe they are really back.

Joe sees them glancing at him when they think that he won’t notice. He knows that they’re waiting for this move to fix him. They think that this will be some miracle cure and they won’t have to worry about him anymore. He doesn’t know how to tell them it won’t work.

He is broken beyond repair and nothing will fix it. This is overwhelming, so he slips out of the house and goes for a walk to clear his head.

No one follows him.

That is a relief, but he feels so empty. This seems like confirmation that he came back all wrong for them when they let him wander off alone. He knows that he is still in earshot of the house and on Bennett land and that he is overwhelmed and needs the space, but he has a hard time believing that is why they let him go out on his own.

* * *

When Joe leaves the house, Thomas doesn’t follow or stop him. He thinks Joe could use some time with the land and it is clear that he is overwhelmed by the move already.

Joe left on his own. He didn’t try to take any of them with him. Thomas is going to respect that.

They need to keep unpacking and Joe needs his space, so he tells his family, “Let him go. He needs time alone. We can’t keep suffocating him.”

They are all eying the door and Thomas can’t blame them. He is too.

He has to be confident in his decision for his pack though, so he doesn’t let on how terrifying it is for him to let Joe out on his own in their yard again.

“He will be okay,” Thomas says and he needs it to be true. He puts all his energy into believing it like somehow he can will it to come true.

* * *

Joe is starting to wonder if he’s wandering too far from the house when he catches a whiff of a smell that is candy canes and pinecones and epic and awesome and he forgets all about the pack that isn’t his anymore. He forgets all about the new house where they all have a place they fit and he doesn’t.

This smell is so strong and so perfect that Joe thinks maybe having this place be his home won’t be so bad if he can just keep this smell forever.

He follows it through the woods, losing sight of his house altogether, and he desperately hopes that the smell won’t fade and lead to a dead end. But the smell keeps getting stronger and then there is a boy, much taller than him, standing in the road and Joe thinks maybe this boy will know what the source of the smell is.

But  _ no _ . Joe gets closer and climbs the boy as he sniffs and asks what that smell is and then it hits him. The boy is the source of the smell.

Suddenly, Joe can’t keep his mouth shut. He is talking and his words aren’t catching in his throat. He isn’t choking on them. He is actually  _ talking _ and this amazing mystery boy is  _ listening _ and cares what he is saying.

The boy says his name is Ox and he is talking too and agreeing to be his friend and this isn’t something old that Joe doesn’t fit into anymore. This is something new, not something old that Joe can’t fit himself into. Joe might not fit in the house they came back to how the rest of them do, but now he wants to stay here.

This is something new that is Joe’s and Joe’s first and he wants his family to know. He wants to call for them. He wants Ox to carry him back home so he can show his new friend off and so that they can all smell him. He wants his family to know that they’re coming. He  _ needs  _ them to know so badly. He wants to climb up onto rooftops and shout it at the top of his lungs so the world will know what he has found.

* * *

The Bennetts are still unpacking when they all freeze. A box slips from Carter’s fingers and lands on Kelly’s foot, but Kelly doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t even seem to notice.

Mark can’t blame him. It is clear that it has hit all of them just as hard.

There is a new pack bond and it is  _ bright bright green _ and it is so loud and it is  _ Joe _ . Mark doesn’t understand, but he is so relieved.

The pack is so green and they can feel it feeding Joe’s green and he is coming, so they all drop everything and head out onto the front porch to see what kind of wonderful thing possibly could have made their  _ packsonbrothernephew _ come back to them and could have made him so happy.

And then, from the woods, Joe emerges on the shoulders of an awkward boy too big for his age. A boy that Mark already knows, at least a little. A boy that Mark promised his friendship too.

Joe wriggles and climbs and Ox sets him down, then Joe is dragging Ox over by the hand and Joe is  _ talking _ . He is talking so much and boasting about his new friendship and telling them all about the  _ smells _ and he’s so enthusiastic. Joe is  _ smiling  _ and as terrifying as it is, Mark knows that Ox is theirs from that very moment.

Ox doesn’t know them. He doesn’t know anything about them. He’s only ever met Mark before. But he brought Joe back to them and brought the life in Joe’s eyes back and they will never be able to repay him for that.

* * *

Later, when Ox has gone back home, Joe is still talking. He asks for his stone wolf and says he wants to give it to Ox.

Thomas is hesitant, it is clear. Joe is just a kid and so is Ox.

Ox doesn’t know them. Ox doesn’t know who they are. Ox doesn’t know what they are. He won’t know what it means. But Joe is  _ talking _ because of him and he wants to give his wolf to Ox  _ now _ .

“You know how it went when you said no to Mark giving his wolf away,” Elizabeth reminds her husband because she can tell he needs a shove in the right direction.

Her son has come back to her and she knows it isn’t fair to Ox, but she will do anything to keep that smile on Joe’s face and keep him talking.

Mark hadn’t understood why he hadn’t been allowed to give his stone wolf to Gordo. He had made a wooden raven to give to him instead and he had still been impatient.

Elizabeth knows that if they say no to Joe, that Joe will be crushed but it won’t stop him. He will find a way around it. And now that the pack bonds are back and Joe is talking to them, she won’t let rules about when Joe can and can’t give his wolf away come between them. This is Joe’s choice and he is choosing Ox. She won’t get in the way of that.

Thomas must feel the same because he nods his head and agrees, “Okay, Joe.”

Joe is beaming and Elizabeth knows they have made the right choice.

“Will you help me wrap it?” Joe asks.

“Of course,” she tells him.

Joe is quieter as they work. It is clear he is taking the task at hand very seriously because this is important to him.

Even though he isn’t speaking, it is clear that he is different than he was before he came back here. There is life in his eyes, a determination. He sees a future in a boy that smells like candy canes and pinecones and epic and awesome. They all feared that his chance at a happy future had been ripped away by Richard, but his first day around this boy, Joe’s  _ mate _ , and Joe is already a brighter version of himself again.

When they finish wrapping the box in ribbon, Joe stands back to admire their work. Elizabeth’s eyes are only on her son and how eager he is to give this gift as he bounces from foot to foot.

“Do you think he’ll like it?” Joe asks and her sweet sweet boy sounds so nervous and for once it is nerves at the possibility of something good, not at the possibility of something even worse.

“I’m sure he’ll love it,” she tells him.

And Joe is  _ green _ .


End file.
